15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Aleko

“ W hat the fuck was that?” Mackenzie and I both freeze and ask the same question at the same time. It feels like that moment lasts a thousand lifetimes, and to be honest, I wish it would. All too quickly, we scramble to cover our naked bodies before I clasp my hand over hers and pull her toward the sound.

The whole way there, my mind is reeling at the possibilities. Maybe it was a snake. Although we don’t really see many after September, it’s not completely out of the question. Some of the venomous ones have been known to surface around this time of year.

Just as the thought pops in, it’s immediately discarded. Bear would have taken care of that problem without hesitation.

Maybe the fire got out of hand? No, that’s not possible. There’s no significant wind and—

“Somebody do something! Oh, God. No. No!” Fuck, that voice…it’s ripping my insides right out.

“Hurry, Aleko! We need to go help!” My steps slow at Mackenzie’s words, whereas hers pick up in speed, separating our joined hands. As I watch her speed run around the building, I realize I’ve stopped moving. I’m frozen in place and I think it’s because my body knows this is bad faster than my brain does.

Because my feet know that once I turn that corner, nothing will be the same again, and honestly, I don’t know if I can take another devastating turn in our lives.

Our lives. Those two words get my legs moving because no fucking way am I letting my Cherry Pie go through another traumatizing event all alone. Fuck that and fuck the universe for apparently hating the fuck out of us.

“Do something, Mac. Do something, please. Oh, God, please, please, please do something.” Vanessa’s wails are like a spear through the middle of my heart. It hurts. It fucking hurts so goddamn bad because I know—I fucking know how she feels right now. There’s no worse feeling than this.

“There’s…” Mackenzie’s voice hitches once, then again, before she can finish her sentence. “There’s nothing for me to do.” With her admission, she falls to her knees and wraps her arms around Vanessa so tightly that I can see the color draining from her fingers. Or maybe I’m imagining it.

My steps are slow, and from this angle, I can’t exactly see what’s going on. Not with Mac and Vanessa blocking my view.

One more step and I see legs, then jean-clad thighs. Followed by the bottom of a cut.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. God, please, no.

Upon taking my last step, I can see over the heads of the two most important women in my life, and what lies beyond them causes my knees to buckle and my breath to lock in my throat.

There’s a flurry of commotion all around us, people screaming, bikes revving, brothers running, and women crying silently. More than a couple not so silently at all.

Through it all, I can’t move. I can only stare, willing the sight before me to be a bad joke, a prank gone wrong, a stupid, drunken bet.

Except I’ve seen bullet holes before and there’s no mistaking the truth of the scene at my feet.

A real bullet in the middle of our president’s skull. Right between his eyes. There's no coming back from this. There's no hoping for the ambulance to get here soon enough. There’s no hope…at all.

The only true father figure in my life is lying dead on the cold November ground and there isn’t a fucking thing I can do about it.

“Psycho! Come on, mate, let’s go!” My head snaps to the side where Sledge is screaming at me, and from the expression on his face, I’m guessing he’s been at it for a while. Blinking, I turn my head back to Prez and suddenly it’s like a dam has broken inside me. Only, instead of water pouring out, it is pure, unfiltered rage and hatred that has me stepping back. One step, two steps, until I’m running toward Sledge and shouting orders at Bash, Jonesy, and Kincaid.

“Bash, Jonesy, you cover him. Did someone call nine-one-one?” My brain is back at work but my heart is hiding inside a titanium safe until we find who did this.

“Yeah, police and ambulance are less than two minutes away.” The thought that it doesn’t matter if they’re two minutes or two hours away crosses my mind but I shove that shit away.

“Kincaid, you take the women inside and put the whole fucking place on lockdown until further notice, got it?” I’m not even looking at her as I throw out directives but she knows what needs to be done. I know for a fact I can count on her.

“Let’s go. It was a sniper shot from straight ahead, over there.” Shade and Hoops are on either side of me, explaining what happened. I’m completely dissociated, like we aren’t talking about the beloved president of this fucking club being executed on our own fucking land. “It had to have come from over there.” Shade points to the barren field beyond our property and I don't miss the slight trembling of his hand and the barely contained rage in the tone of his voice.

“No way he was on our side of the line, we’ve got booby traps and triggers all over the fucking place. This was a professional job done by a fucking sniper. Probably ex-military because that son of a bitch did not miss and only fired once.” I’m soaking up all the information Hoops is giving me and we don’t need to say the words out loud to know exactly who the fuck did this.

The fucking Irish.

Well, they’ve been begging for war. I guess they’ve got it now.

The sound of my name being called has me snapping around and searching her out. Gone is the woman I knew less than twenty minutes ago. Gone are the bright smiles and positive eyes. In their place is the shell of who Vanessa used to be. The woman I see now, standing at the top of the stairs with Mackenzie holding her by the waist as she struggles to stay upright, is already just half alive. And I know all too well where her other half has gone.

“Griffin loves…” Knowing she can no longer use the present, she pauses, takes a fortifying breath that hitches into a small sob, then tries again. “Griffin loved you like his own son. You find the son of a bitch who did this and you put a bullet through his head. Do you understand me?” I nod, not sure my voice could work well enough to be heard all the way across the road.

But I whisper it and make sure she can see my mouth move.

“I promise.”

The Sons and the Reapers all spread out in a straight, horizontal line as we walk from our compound to the edge of the property. As we anticipated, we didn’t find anything on our side, it’s just not possible for anyone to come to this side without setting off our alarms.

“The fence is easy enough to climb over, let’s go see what’s there.” Bear is already jogging to the neighbor’s property, avoiding a trigger line probably set up by Python back in the day.

We’re about five hundred yards from where our bonfire was roaring and the tree line to the neighbor’s property is another three hundred yards. Hoops is right, no fucking way this was amateur. Those motherfuckers brought in a professional.

“Hey, Boss, we’ve got a problem.” A few yards beside me, Flower is on the phone and I’m guessing she’s calling Marco Mancini to let him know a close ally has just been murdered by a common enemy. “Yeah, I know. Nah, we’re good, but Marco should know we may have casualties.” As she says this, her gaze darts over to me so quickly I almost miss it. Except I’m staring at her and not even pretending I’m not listening in on her conversation. “Got it. Yeah, Glitch’s van is full. Sure will, Boss. Tell Shoo we miss his little face!”

She doesn’t even wait for an answer and just hangs up the phone like she’s scared of the repercussions.

“Who was that?” Polite walked out the door when my Prez was executed.

“The Shadow.” Ah, yes. I’ve heard of the Shadow. The only female capo in existence and leader of the Reapers up in New York.

“Badass.” Every person I’ve ever met has said this. She’s about to answer when I spot something glistening in the moonlight right at the end of the clearing that leads to the small forest. “Don’t move.”

“Yeah, we’re not gonna do that, okay?” I turn to her, annoyed, because I want my attention solely on whatever it is that’s caught my sight.

“Do what, exactly?” When I face her once more, there’s no doubt I’m scowling. Sometimes I think I have Resting Dickhead Face.

“The whole”—she waves her fingers around my face then body and back to my face like she’s encompassing my whole body—“me man, you woman. Let me protect you bullshit.”

I grin, which she definitely does not like.

“Hey, suit yourself, FloFlo, but you were about to step on a boobie trap.” At my words, Flower freezes, looking around her feet, trying to find the culprit. Then she takes her phone out and turns the flashlight on.

“I can’t see it.”

Shaking my head, I keep walking and throw my answer over my shoulder. “That’s ‘cause I just saved your ass.”

Behind me, Flower grunts. I’m about to give her shit when I hear Bear call out, “Found something!”

Careful not to blow ourselves up, we gather around Bear and look down at the small patch of grass at our feet.

Lying there, like a fucking staged theatre set, is a piece of paper with a rifle casing lying dramatically on top.

“It’s a point three o’ eight. American made.” Hoops, our military know it all, looks up at me and frowns. “I was right. This was ex-military.”

Something catches my eye so I crouch down and pick up the paper.